Bad teachers: Ontario's secret list

Here are some of the people licensed in Ontario to teach your children.

A teacher who disciplined students by warning they would “spend time with a pedophile” and if the behaviour got worse it “would be without vaseline.”

Ryan Geekie, licensed to teach in Ontario, was suspended for three months for professional misconduct. His name was kept secret by the Ontario College of Teachers.

A high school teacher whose female students said he called them “sluts,” “pole dancers,” “whore” and commented that tongue studs were for “oral sex.”

A teacher who shut Grade 8 students in a storage cupboard to discipline them.

A teacher who repeatedly took photos of Grade 8 girls with his cellphone.

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A drunk teacher who sexually assaulted a store clerk.

A teacher who stole money students deposited with her for school trips to Europe.

A teacher who scared female Grade 6 students by drawing pictures depicting one girl’s death and tacking them to her dormitory window during a three-day outdoor education trip.

A principal and vice-principal who did not report a child’s allegations of sexual abuse, as required by law.

A gym teacher who frequently came late to school, smelled of booze and fell asleep in class.

The identity of scores of bad teachers and dozens more each year is kept secret by the profession’s watchdog — the Ontario College of Teachers.

That’s because the watchdog — a self-regulatory body — granted them anonymity after the teacher pleaded guilty or “no contest” to certain allegations. Typically, the teachers received a reprimand or short suspension.

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In its investigation, the Star also found teachers who help students cheat on provincial EQAO tests; a teacher who ridiculed students’ religious beliefs; a teacher who repeatedly hit or manhandled students; a teacher who flirted with a Grade 7 girl, sending her what a judge ruled (though the teacher was acquitted of sexual assault and exploitation charges) were “sexually charged” text messages including “lots of love” and “can’t stop thinking about you, I didn’t want you to leave today.”

In some cases, a summary is published on the watchdog’s website and in its quarterly newsletter, without the teacher’s name or school. Some of the cases — particularly those dealing with incompetence — are never published at all.

Parents, these teachers could be in your school.

The Star has found that three years ago the backlogged Ontario College of Teachers began making more and more of these secret deals. These are not the worst of the worst — cases where a teacher was convicted of a criminal sexual assault on a student — but they are still serious abuses of trust. The Star reports on the more serious cases Saturday and the teaching profession’s inability to reduce the attacks 12 years after retired judge Sydney Robins probed that problem.

When it comes to keeping secret the names of some offenders, College Registrar Michael Salvatori said it is done if the teacher had a “momentary lapse of judgment.” Salvatori said that they make the decision in “the public interest.” Salvatori said College rules prevented him from commenting on any of the cases.

After the Star raised this and other issues with the College this summer, it hired respected retired judge Patrick LeSage just before Labour Day to examine its disciplinary practices. One of LeSage’s jobs is to “consider whether the College’s communication and publication practices prior to and following a hearing meet current standards of transparency.”

To determine how many teachers’ identities are kept secret, the Star first obtained all published decisions of teacher wrongdoing.

Each year, the Ontario College of Teachers makes a finding of wrongdoing in about 90 cases. The Star obtained copies of all decisions that the College makes public on its website or in its magazine. The College said it publishes these decisions to educate members and show to the public that it is doing its job of protecting students.

More and more, we found, problem teachers are shielded from the public.

Of the 49 cases published in 2010, 35 did not identify the teacher.

Of the 43 cases published in 2009, 20 did not identify the teacher.

Of the 38 cases published in 2008, 5 did not identify the teacher.

In most of these cases, the College also did not identify the school board and the school was never named.

In addition, between 40 and 50 College cases per year are not published at all.

The discipline decisions are made by committees comprised of teachers elected to the College’s governing council and members of the public. The college has three main committees that sit in judgment — investigation, discipline and fitness to practise. Typically, a three-person panel has two teachers and one public member.

The Star found that most teachers on the panels were previously members of a local bargaining unit of a teachers’ union.

The panels hear cases, decide if punishment (anything from an admonishment to revocation of licence) is necessary and determine if the teacher’s name should be published.

If Ryan Geekie was your son or daughter’s teacher you would not know that a very serious investigation was carried out into his conduct.

You would have no way of knowing that a summary report the College published in April 2010 about a teacher who used profane language was related to 36-year-old Hamilton teacher Ryan Geekie.

It took time but the Star was able to identify Geekie. We were then able to obtain a copy of the College’s original allegations and an agreed statement of facts between Geekie and the College.

Reached by the Star’s Jesse McLean at his Hamilton apartment, Geekie said he was “really tired” and could not answer questions.

Geekie was licensed by the College to teach in 2001. A well-known hockey goalie (Ontario Provincial Junior League) in the Hamilton area, Geekie attended McMaster University for his undergraduate degree and teachers college at Brock University. He became a high school English teacher at the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board.

According to a school board investigation done in 2008, and allegations subsequently made by the College, Geekie was an abusive, lecherous teacher from 2003-2008 who:

• stuffed rolled paper balls down the shirts of female students

• called students “retarded,” “hooker,” “pole dancers,” “slut” and “whore”

• challenged a female student to a fist fight, then made a sexual suggestion that he would “find something for her to do with her fists”

• asked the class if an absent student’s mother had died of a sexually transmitted disease

• gave a female student extra marks for work she did not do

• told a female student with a tongue stud that they were for “oral sex”

• spoke in class about having sex in the back of his car, drank with students at parties, swore constantly in class and called people “gay” if he thought they were “stupid,” slapped female students on their buttocks with sticks or his hand, took showers with the boys hockey team and brushed a female student’s breast with his arm.

The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic school board had heard complaints about Geekie over the years and they were dealt with at the school level, said board chair Pat Daly. In 2008, following an investigation into more serious allegations Geekie was put on paid “home” duty in February 2008. He was fired by the board just before the 2008-2009 school year began.

Geekie did not respond to three interview requests. He is listed as a teacher in good standing in Ontario after serving a one-month suspension in 2010. It appears he has taken a break from teaching and is delivering mail.

The case went to the College’s discipline committee and a deal was reached. Geekie pleaded no contest to a modified list of allegations (a perception among female students that he leered; that he questioned girls about their relationships; that he suggested female students stop talking about tongue studs “as they were for oral sex”; that he slapped the thigh of a female student with a metre stick; that he swore often and called students “whore,” “retard,” “gay” and “ditsy”). The committee said it published a summary of the case, keeping Geekie’s name secret, to “demonstrate the transparency of the discipline process” and as a “general deterrent” to teachers.

The committee kept Geekie’s name secret due to the contents of two “teacher evaluations” it received (the College does not say what was in them). The committee also heard from lawyers on both sides that his actions were “on the low end of the spectrum” of problem teachers. Finally, the committee noted that Geekie is likely not to reoffend because he has been told to take a course on “boundary issues.”

In a second case the Star was able to identify Peel District School Board teacher Massimo Tallarico, who was acquitted in 2009 of sexual assault and exploitation charges by a criminal court. The College’s own process found that he committed professional misconduct related to a female student in her Grade 7 and 8 years.

According to the College, Tallarico, who hung up when the Star contacted him, engaged in “an inappropriate relationship” with a student who was shy and introverted and suffered from a social anxiety disorder. He frequently emailed and instant messaged her, saying things like “lots of love,” “miss you lots,” “I wish I could talk to you all the time,” “can’t stop thinking about you, I didn’t want you to leave today” and “I always love it when you come and talk to me.” At his trial (two years before the College hearing), the judge called his communication with the girl — which he initially denied to police — “flirty and even sexually charged.”

The judge said she could not find that any sexual touching occurred (the student alleged it had) but she chided Tallarico for his behaviour. She said he was seen as “young and cool” and he “cultivated his image of being the most fun and popular teacher in the school.”

In his defence, Tallarico said his emails were innocuous and sent as a way to encourage a shy girl to communicate.

The judge found that Tallarico’s online chatting with the girl “did a grave disservice in her quest to become an adult.”

The teacher was reprimanded by the College and told to complete a course on appropriate boundaries.

The discipline committee voted two to one not to name him. One committee member argued he should have been identified because “publication of the findings and order without the member’s name amounts to suppression of information and raises questions in the minds of the public regarding the transparency of the process.”

One teacher the College did identify was a teacher whose only crime was to break their secrecy rules.

James Black, a teacher and former discipline committee member, was publicly named by the College and suspended for two years because the College suspected he leaked information to the media.

The committee suspected (but could not prove) that Black gave information to a CTV reporter in 2006 who was probing the College’s practice of allowing teachers convicted of sex crimes to be reinstated after their licence was revoked. The College claims Black leaked information to CTV News about a teacher convicted of sexual exploitation in 1990, who was jailed 15 months and later sought reinstatement.

In 2009, the committee fined its former member, Black, $1,000, and suspended him for two years.

The College ruled that Black was guilty of a serious “breach of confidentiality” which “may have damaged the professional image of the College and its members. The need for a strong general deterrent is imperative in this matter.”

Black, reached by the Star, said he could not comment on his case.

The teacher in the case that led to Black’s suspension, Rodney Palmer, was suspended in 1991 and reinstated in 2003 in a closed-door hearing. He taught for a time east of Toronto, then retired.